Permissions. Unix geeks know them well as they are constantly handing them out, taking them back. Academics, when it comes to their publishing rights, don’t know what permissions they have or given away. Once you signed the contract you may also have no idea where you filed it, if you filed it.

But now if you want to know, it just got a heck of a lot easier. I was just alerted to a website Sherpa RoMeo that helps you figure it all out! As they report on their front page:

“Use this site to find a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher’s copyright transfer agreement.”

Now that is a nifty tool!

San Juan is not teeming with free hot spots but there are certainly a few one can tap into.
Perhaps my favorite place to get wireless is a newish coffee shop on Avenida De Diego in Santurce by the name of Hacienda San Pedro. Their coffee is good, roasted in the shop and a cup of cappuccino is only 1.65.

The other place to get free wireless, which is hard to believe, is Starbucks. Their cappucinos are more like 3+ and usually you have to pay for wireless. For some reason and this has been the case for 5 years now, in every Starbucks I have been to here, including the airport where I am now struggling to stay awake, have provided free wireless with a company called Blue Cenntenial.

The thing is when you fire up your computer, you would never know it was free because you are directed to a log in (or sign up page) where you think that they will of course ask for your credit card information. Well when you sign up, you give your information, which can be fake and under the credit card section, there is sort of nothing there, you finish your transaction and vaulla, free account. They don’t bother to tell you on the page or in the shop this is the case, so you just gotta know. If you don’t have a computer and are bored in the airport, you can also play Galaga, which are located at nearly every gate.

So for those in PR needing free wireless, two coffee shops that reside on the opposite side of quality both have it.

This summer I swore off travel, conferences, etc and promised I would sit in front of my computer as much as humanely possible. Well, by making a promise I guess it sets you up for breaking them as well. But no regrets, as the promise was broken for a good reason: I decided to attend and give a (short) talk the The Open Video Conference, which looks like it is going to be quite an event, being held June 19th and 20th at NYU law school.

Why hold a conference about video now? As stated on their website:

As internet video matures, we face a crossroads: will technology and public policy support a more participatory culture—one that encourages and enables free expression and broader cultural engagement? Or will online video become a glorified TV-on-demand service, a central part of a permissions-based culture? Web video holds tremendous potential, but limits on broadband, playback technology, and fair use threaten to undermine the ability of individuals to engage in dialogues in and around this new media ecosystem.

The organizers are not taking what we have now as a given but want to make sure the gifts that keeps on giving and the democratic potential of open video will surive in the future. They have assembled an incredible (and diverse) line up. I am particularly excited about Amy Goodman, DVD Jon (my talk is partially about him) as well as the hackers behind VLC (cuz VLC has saved me on SO many occasions!).

The organizers have made sure to also include some fun, so there is a Friday night after-party, movies, and an informal Hackday on Sunday.

If in the area, *do* drop on by!

Should I or should I not capitalize Free Software?

This article on the benefits of distraction published in New York Magazine is a bit old (by I-time, at least). But with 30+ tabs open I could not get to it until today when I did the job of pruning my tabs.

At first I was a little taken aback by its length (sort of ironic for an article on distraction: one is bound to be distracted but I read it in one sittings (actually couch lying). But I got really into it: the prose is excellent and he maneuvers through the landscape–the bad, good, and ugly–of today’s digital distraction with ease, insight, and humor. I think you will enjoy it.

Despite its name Apartment Therapy, does not act therapeutic. It actually makes me quite depressed, frumpy to be specific. Everything is so cutesy and pretty pricey. I know I will never have home/apts/ like these people and perhaps that is for the best. But the sad thing is it is not only depressing but has induced a mild case of OCD as well: Despite the fact it makes me feel bad, I love looking at the site and like the trillion similar blogs. It is like peering into people’s apartments … everyday.

But there is only one apartment so far that left me pretty breathless. It is French, of course. Wow, what a place.

Struggle.article.jpg, originally uploaded by the biella.

Funny but true. I am still getting a trickle of comments on my rant against Blue Cross NO Shield as they, like most American insurance companies, s.u.c.k.

You can follow Emily Anderson recreating the Alice Ramsey drive on Twitter.

Can people point me to websites that they think pleases the aesthetic soul but are ferociously user friendly and pragmatic (that is, easy to navigate, easy to read, etc)?

OOOI Vey: Fieldwork is not what it used to be! So, when I hear the title of this new book, I basically hear/see an old Jewish academic kvetching about the glory days of anthropology and fieldwork and complaining about his aching back. But that is just my mind in humorous mode as I am extraordinarily excited to read the book and pretty psyched that fieldwork is not what once was.

Not only does the collection have a piece by one of my dissertation advisors but it has a motley collection of folks who basically helped push along anthropology to a better place. Most of them (in fact all of them, I think) had some connection to the Rice Anthropology department. Clearly something in the water and air makes folks from there hang tight with the experimental mode!